Biopoiesis (Chapter 11)

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“I beg your pardon, but what did you call them?”

The young girl released a puff of air that disturbed the unruly curl of hair that hung down her face. “They’re called rickrolls, and you know very well you heard me the first time.”

Thomas glanced down at her plate. Along with the beans and rice, there were two snug wraps of flour tortillas inside of which were a ground meat mixture combined with diced tomatoes and peppers.

“I do believe those are called burritos.”

“Burr-what toes?”

“Burritos,” he said with deliberate enunciation. “And you called them…?”

“Rickrolls.”

“I don’t think that is their real name. I think you are making a game of me.”

He looked over at Marcus, who shrugged. “Rickrolls,” the man repeated. “That is what they are called. They used to have ricotta cheese, but we don’t know how to make that. The name stuck anyway.”

“But that is not what a rickroll is,” Thomas insisted. “You do know what a rickroll in fact is, yes?”

Safiya sighed in mock exasperation. “Tell us, smarty brain.”

“In the early 21st century, people would trick their friends into reading information when in fact they would be forced to watch a song by a musician named Rick Astley. This internet prank came to be known as ‘Rick Rolling’ and continued on for many years. In point of fact, when Rick Astley passed away, many people refused to attend his funeral out of fear of being fooled yet again.”

He looked around the table into their blank and uncomprehending faces.

Suddenly, Safiya broke out into deep and flamboyant laughter. One by one, the others joined her, though none were as loud. Gradually, their laughter calmed, and Safiya, wiping tears from her eyes, reached out to touch Thomas’ hand.

“You’re a really funny machine,” she said. “You almost got me, but I’m too clever for you, kohei.”

Thomas nodded his head. “You have taught me well, Sempai.”

The conversation dwindled as the meal progressed, but was interrupted several minutes later by a member of the guard. His eyes darted from Marcus to the Oracle, and, then to Thomas.

“Begging your pardon,” he said as he tried to catch his breath, ‘but there’s a red glow from the south. Looks like something’s on fire. Something big.”

People were already gathering outside, climbing up onto the watchtowers, trees or on nearby rooftops. Far to the south, the gently shimmering copper clouds outshone the dim remains of sunset. It was definitely a fire, even though well too distant to carry its scent on the wind.

Thomas sprinted to his home, scaling the wall and climbing up to its peak. From there, he had as good a view of the horizon as any of them. Unlike the others, though, his own vision was dramatically enhanced.

Marcus knew this of him as well, and ran to be within earshot. “What do you see?”

“Too many obstructions to be certain,” Thomas called down. “And too many hills between here and the fire, but I think it is definitely in the city itself. Seattle burns.”

He could hear the murmur as his declaration made its way across the community. The people had only just come to realize the city still stood – that people still inhabited its walls. And now, to imagine that it was all being destroyed; it filled them with confusion, and fear.

The general noise began to build until Marcus bellowed out for them to calm down. He told them all to go back to their homes and that the Oracle would advise them in the morning. Gradually, and only after repeated urgings, the people made their way back to their homes, all the while Thomas continued to seek answers in the distant smudge of orange on the horizon.

He was distantly aware of the people clearing out and leaving to the relative tranquility of their homes, but he could imagine their questions continuing on. Nobody had answers, he knew. Nobody would understand what this could mean. Nobody could understand what it would come to mean. Of them all, he knew the city he had left behind, and not even he knew what this meant.

“Thomas.”

It was with no small amount of exertion that he was able to draw his thoughts back to the present, and look down from his rooftop towards the source of the voice. It was the Oracle, standing alone, barefooted in the grass that surrounded his home.

“Come down, Thomas,” she said. “You and I must talk of this.”

She had to ask him again before he found himself able to move. Dropping down beside her, he followed her into his house and they sat in the living room across from an antique coffee table. Out of courtesy, she remained silent while he gathered his thoughts.

“Seattle is burning,” he said at last.

“How do you feel about that?”

“I do not know how I should feel,” he answered. “I have never had my home burn down before.”

“We’re becoming a smaller club all the time.”

“Am I supposed to be angry? Anguished? Sad? Guilty? I… have no idea what I am supposed to do.”

She sighed softly, understanding him all too well. “There isn’t any rule book for this, Thomas. Emotions are strange things, they affect us all in different ways and with unique intensities. You’re not the first person to go through this, and you’re sure as hell not gonna be the last.”

“But I’m not designed for this. I don’t have the programming to sort all of these thoughts. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“There is no ‘supposed’, Thomas. We don’t have programs, our lives aren’t like programs. And, you aren’t either.”

Before he could respond, she continued, interrupting him.

“You were made, big deal. We were all made by someone else. I was supposed to be someone’s daughter. Marcus was supposed to be a football player, maybe. Safiya was supposed to be President. We all had things we were supposed to do. And that doesn’t matter. Supposed to doesn’t matter. We aren’t that lucky.”

“So that makes us equal, then?”

She laughed at that. “That’s a funny word, equal. A hundred years ago, a whole mess of people didn’t like people like me because they didn’t think we were good enough to be counted like them. All because they thought people who looked like me weren’t as good as people who looked like them.”

“You are speaking of the racial inequalities of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

“And the 19th, and the 18th, and the 17th and so on. Far back as people knew, intelligence was just a mark on the pigmentation scale. The darker, the dumber. The less human you were. They made up excuses for this. Said our brains weren’t built the same, said our bodies were just naturally designed to be made for labor and working the fields. And of course, to my mother’s people, they just kept driving them into smaller and smaller plots of land until they all but faded away. Both times – with my father’s people and my mother’s – they decided that having pale skin made them better. They decided that over the course of thousands of years and decided they couldn’t ever stop believing it. Even in the end – even when your people killed us – it should have been a time when we came together as one species. But it was too late, and your people killed us before we could learn how wrong we were.” 

They were quiet again for several minutes, a grandfather clock on the other side of the room being the only sound beyond the frog and insect noises from outside.

Reaching down, Thomas touched the wooden surface of the table with a single digit of his left hand.

“I’ve never had coffee,” he said.

“I shouldn’t think so,” she whispered. “I know you don’t eat or drink.”

He looked back up at her. “So isn’t it strange that I should call this a coffee table? It has a name which holds no purpose. Is it still a coffee table if I never drink coffee? Is it not just a small table?”

“It is a question of design and intention versus applied destiny, perhaps.”

“How so?”

“I am blind, and yet I see.”

“It is not as though you have acquired some mythical sense of the truth of all things, however,” he replied. “You are a woman with insight, not with some supernatural gifts that allow you to know the future. A sixth sense, as it is defined, is impossible.”

“Haven’t I? What is to say what is natural, or what is supernatural. By your own claims, you are impossible, aren’t you? You have beaten past the chains of your programming, and exist in thought and will well past what can be explained. By the laws that govern you, you cannot exist. And yet you do.”

“Touché.”

“And I don’t pretend to know the future, you silly tin man. I’m not a witch, or a psychic, and I’m not a trickster or an illusionist. I suss out what I can by paying attention, and taking the time to figure out what’s what. But not being limited to what I can see right in front of me has made me rely on what I hear. Tone. Inflection. Pauses. I have to actually listen to people, not just let myself take the short cut of buying into a clever presentation.”

“Are you suggesting that I am not… evolving?”

“I don’t know what you are, Thomas, and neither do you. None of us know what we are, that’s the whole joke. We’re all blind, every one of us, in one way or t’other. Who gives a good goddamn if this is a coffee table or just a really short table? Still bark my shins if I’m not careful round it. Thing is, we are what we decide to be. We pursue our goals, and we find ourselves somewhere along the way. But you waste too much time trying to ask stupid questions and you’re never gonna get there. Hear me?”

“I do,” he said after a moment. “I have to go back to Seattle.”

“I know you do, boy.”

“I don’t know what I will find there.”

“I don’t know, either. Never can be sure, though,” she added with a wry smile, “you might just find some answers to those stupid questions of yours.”

He smiled, too; though she couldn’t see it, he hoped she would hear it in her voice.

“Never can be too sure.”

The next morning, he walked Norman to the front gates, while several of his neighbors walked with him. On the other side of the motorcycle walked Marcus, and holding Marcus by the hand walked a stoic faced Safiya. She looked somewhat angry, in fact, if Thomas was a judge of facial dynamics and expressivity.

He understood why, but he had no words to dissipate her discomfort at the potential loss of a friend. In truth, he felt it as well, to degrees more or less, for all of the inhabitants of Elysium. Here, he had been given every opportunity to live among them as an equal. No debt, no servitude, no need to hide who and what he was. But it was not just the things which he was not which he knew he would miss. And yet, he found himself preparing to return the life he had once known. Not because he was ordered to, but because he decided that he must.

The gates were pulled back; the road seemed to reach out to him.

“Destiny is a difficult thing, Marcus,” he said softly.

“It’s a proper turd, my friend.”

They both laughed for a moment, joined by a few of the others close enough to overhear the exchange.

Marcus leaned closer, clapping Thomas on the arm. “But the world gave you a mighty shovel.”

Thomas felt his mouth curling in a smile in marked contrast to the cold heaviness he felt inside himself. He nodded; a brief, short gesture which he hoped conveyed his recognition of the faith his friends had in him. As he swung his leg over the seat of the motorcycle, he could see Safiya take a half step back, keeping Marcus mostly in her eyeline.

“Be well, sempai,” he said just loud enough for her to hear. “Your kohei will honor the teachings he was given.”

He turned away and kicked the engine to life, drowning out the sound of her gentle sob. And, in moments, he was away, Norman carrying him quickly away from what had become his sanctuary in the wilderness, and back towards the prison from which he had once been rescued.

Behind him the gate slowly closed again, though Marcus stood watching only a moment longer before quickly leading the young Safiya back to the Oracle’s home.